A Wild Ride (Part 2)

(Circa 1985-2000)

Luke’s antics were impossible to document in one blog post so this is a continuation of my previous post (dated 2/11/22). So come along with me to enjoy more adventures with my wild son, but hang onto your hat! It’s going to be another “Wild Ride”.

Luke was about 8 years old when Bill got him a BB gun. One day he was out in the back yard, shooting it. I told him to shoot toward the wood fence – NOT toward the house. A little while later, I heard an ear-piercing, heart-stopping sound of shattering glass. Our sliding glass door had suddenly been transformed into a spider web of glass fragments! After taking a deep breath, slowing my wildly beating heart, I confronted my wide-eyed son. Luke’s explanation? “Gee, I’m sorry, Mom, the BB ricocheted.” (Ummm … Sure…)

Now I had to figure out how to handle the situation. Luke clearly needed some discipline. Normally I took care of discipline needs right away, rather than threaten the proverbial “wait until your father gets home”. However, in this situation, I decided to let him suffer a little bit – and wait until his father got home. So, for the rest of the day, he spent dreading the moment when Daddy would walk through the door. In the meantime, I called Bill and told him what had happened so by the time of his arrival home, he had prepared himself to play it up. Trying to hide our laughter, Bill administered the proper discipline to our quaking son who got the point and never did shoot his BB gun toward the house again. (I can’t say he never disobeyed us again though…)

Another day Luke was on the patio. Every now and then, I heard a little “pop” – “pop” and wondered what he was doing. He had taken a roll of caps from his cap gun, dug out the gun powder and was making little bombs and setting them off. Thankfully, nothing caught on fire that day.

Our house was, at times, a playground for the kids in the neighborhood. We had a flight of stairs in the house that was perfect for a multitude of activities, one of which was wrapping yourself in a sleeping bag at the top of the stairs and sliding to the bottom, bumping on each step along the way. Being a protective mother, I was afraid they were going to hurt themselves so I told them to stop doing that. However, one night when I was sure the kids weren’t watching, I covertly tried it myself – and discovered it was so much fun! And so, the next time they did it, I joined in.

Pet Snakes(?)

Luke’s 5^th grade class had a pet garter snake. Spring break was coming and someone had to take the snake home to take care of it for the week. Luke begged me to let him take it home. I don’t mind spiders or even cockroaches, but I DETEST snakes – even small ones that are harmless.

Looking into Luke’s sweet, pitiful, pleading brown eyes, how could I resist? I relented and told him I would let him do it – with a couple of conditions: he would be the one to take care of it and he was ABSOLUTELY NOT ALLOWED to sneak up behind me with the snake to scare me. (He had done that with a toy snake a few times and nearly gave me a heart attack.) He solemnly promised to obey – and the little snake became our houseguest. Luke dutifully kept his word, we both survived and our little houseguest happily went back to school the next week. And that was that (at least I thought).

However, a few weeks later Luke rode his bicycle home from the nearby pond where he had been playing. He had captured a garter snake and on the way home it had slithered into the handlebars of his bicycle and was stuck. We were trying to figure out how to get the little critter out when Luke had an idea: he got the hose, turned it on, full force, stuck it in his handlebars and out popped the traumatized snake.

But then came the inevitable question: “Mom, can I keep him?” Again, looking into his pleading eyes, how could I resist? After all, he was so good with the classroom snake, I relented. And so we bought a cage for him to live in and some live goldfish for him to eat. The little critter grew on me and I even kind of liked the little guy. I even learned to feed live fish to him, watched him swallow them whole and watched his body swell to the shape of the fish (kind of gross). But I still couldn’t bring myself to touch him.

He lived in Luke’s room, that is, until one night when he escaped from his cage. We could not find him. We looked and looked and looked. The horrible reality hit me: there was a snake slithering somewhere through my house! I envisioned him someday slithering through the heater vent down onto my head and I shivered at the thought. It was getting late and Luke needed to get to bed. I shook off the vision and kissed him goodnight. I then reached up on top of his bookcase to turn off his light. There was the snake, coiled up, contentedly enjoying the warmth of the lamp. I screamed and jumped back, my heart wildly pounding – and the next day Luke reluctantly returned the snake to the pond.

Adventures on an Odyssey

Bill bought Luke an old Honda Odyssey (a small, one-seat dune buggy with a roll cage) that was in pieces. They spent hours together assembling it and getting it to run. Luke loved that little thing and would drive it through the forest with his friend, Brian, who also had an Odyssey. He especially loved rolling it over and landing upside down and coming home covered, head to toe, with mud.

They also drove their Odysseys through the neighborhood. However, there was a certain police officer (Officer Harris) who took a particular dislike to Luke and Brian. Whenever they were out riding, Officer Harris would pull them over for not being licensed and were therefore not allowed to drive on neighborhood streets. (Of course, they weren’t licensed! They were only 13 years old!) So, the boys would push their Odysseys several blocks to the end of the road where there was a large field, then drive them. However, Officer Harris still wasn’t satisfied. One day he cited the boys for riding in the field and ordered them to go to juvenile hall. Luke’s criminal career had begun.

The appointed day arrived for us to meet with the juvenile hall officer. With much trepidation, Bill and I took our little convict to juvenile hall. The officer took one look at Luke’s citation, sighed, and told us that he had just dealt with a boy who had committed murder. Luke’s infraction was a waste of his time. In fact, he told us that he had done the same things when he was a boy – and so he set Luke free. And, gratefully, that was the end of Luke’s life of crime.

An Old Chevy Blazer

As I mentioned in my previous blog post, Luke had a 1978 Chevy Blazer, 4-wheel drive. He drove it through the forests around Flagstaff, but even with 4-wheel drive, he invariably got it stuck. One day he was driving down a steep hill. The car slid, slammed into a pine tree and became hopelessly wedged against it, adding yet another dent to its already pitifully battered body. Try as he might, he could not pull it off that tree. So, he walked home, got the chain saw and … cut down the tree.

The poor Blazer did have issues. It was so loud you could hear it coming a mile away and one of its headlights was always going out. Luke would come home late at night from working at the ice rink and the police would pull him over because of his headlight. So, Luke would simply get out of his car, beat once on the headlight and it would come back on – and the police would let him go. Eventually his loud Blazer with the bad headlight became such a common sight, the police didn’t bother pulling him over anymore.

Finally, it was time to bid the Blazer adieu and buy another car. So he took it out for its final good-bye adventure and there it met a fitting demise. In Sedona there is a company that takes tourists on jeep tours into the back country: Pink Jeep Tours. One of the roads they use is affectionately known as the “Road of No Return” – an appropriate name for this adventure. Luke and two of his friends decided to drive on it and in the process, drove over a large boulder. The car tipped over so far over that its unsecured battery fell over, setting the car on fire. There they were, in the middle of nowhere, helplessly watching Luke’s car in flames.

The fire department arrived to put out the fire and a nearby bush that had ignited, but the car was too hot to tow. It was nearly sunset so they left the car there, all night long, in the middle of the road. Pink Jeep Tours was livid! That old Chevy Blazer was blocking their favorite road and they couldn’t use it for their tours. But Luke was helpless. Early the next morning two tow trucks arrived to tow it out to the main road and one truck towed it home. And there its burned out hulk sat in our back yard. Now what?

The car had literally melted. Some parts were salvageable, which Luke sold. The rest could be salvaged for scrap metal but he had no way to haul it to the recyclers. Then Luke’s resourcefulness kicked in. He got Bill’s reciprocal saw and literally cut the car into quarters, loaded each quarter into our old wood hauling trailer and took it away to the recycler’s. The cutting process, however, made a horrendous noise that lasted for hours. Our poor neighbors had, over the years, gotten used to Luke’s exasperating antics and should never have been surprised at what he would do next, but this was a new one. And so our next door neighbor called us, sighing: “And what on earth is Luke up to now?” How do you explain Luke? All we could do was sheepishly answer: “Ummm … He’s, um … cutting up his Blazer?”

Luke’s Jobs – and a “Radioactive Rake”

Luke had several jobs during his growing-up years. Besides doing odd jobs for neighbors, his first job was delivering newspapers for the Arizona Daily Sun. Then, at 14 years old, he became an ice guard at the ice rink and eventually became one of the managers. He also got a job driving big gasoline tanker trucks to and from Phoenix. Being the paranoid mother that I was, driving those big trucks filled with thousands of gallons of flammable gasoline, up and down the mountainous Interstate 17 terrified me, especially in the wintertime when it was icy and snowy. I did a lot of praying those days.

And he worked for the Arizona Department of Transportation, taking care of various maintenance needs along Interstate 17. One of his jobs was to drag dead animals, such as elk, off the road into the forest. (Not to gross you out, but some of them were bloated and rotting.) Another job was to drive a big snow plow, which made him a very popular commodity for other drivers, who were blinded by white-outs. (Spoiler alert: snow plow drivers can’t see any better than other drivers.)

One day he and his crew were at the top of a steep embankment, raking cinders off an on-ramp. Cinders, when used on icy roads, are invaluable for preventing vehicles from sliding. However, when the roads are dry, they are like little ball bearings and are hazardous to walk on. As Luke and his co-worker were raking, they both slid on the cinders. As Luke felt himself falling off the embankment, he threw his rake away from himself. His co-worker, however, threw his rake too – directly underneath Luke. When Luke fell, he fell, butt first, on top of the rake handle, impaling himself about 18 inches into his body. Having no idea how far that rake handle had penetrated, he and his co-worker pulled it out and realized, as blood squirted everywhere, that this was very, very serious.

The paramedics raced him to the ER where they admitted him for emergency surgery. So much damage to his body could have been done! How many organs could have been destroyed! But the only damage that rake handle did was put a big second hole in his back side (right next to the hole he was born with, if you know what I mean) and nick his liver a little bit. God had miraculously preserved his life. His guardian angels must have been working overtime that day.

His co-workers at the highway maintenance yard were now faced with a quandary: what to do with that infamous, blood soaked rake. No one wanted to use it so they put it in a corner, against a fence and hung a sign with the radioactive symbol on it. I don’t know what its eventual fate was, but I doubt it was ever used again.

The Love of His Life

She is beautiful! No wonder Luke fell in love with her. Julie was a high school girl from San Diego who often visited her aunt and uncle, who lived in our neighborhood. The first time I met her was on a warm summer evening when about 8 teenagers were all sitting, cross-legged, on our poor trampoline that was sagging under the weight. Little did I know Julie would eventually become our precious daughter-in-law. After high school graduation, she moved to Flagstaff to attend Northern Arizona University and became a regular guest in our house. I treasure those years we had with her before she actually became an official part of our family.

During her senior year, Luke gave her a diamond ring and their engagement was official. 3 months later, it was time to say good-bye. They would make their home in San Diego and our life would never be the same. My precious firstborn was grown up and my job of mothering was now finished. It hurt down to the core of my being – but it was good. It was the way it should be.

It was a magically warm evening in San Diego one year later, in a garden on an island in Mission Bay. A late afternoon sun shone on a lovely, smiling bride walking down the aisle, gazing on her handsome groom who was beaming with joy as he waited for her at the altar. The ceremony was traditional, but certainly not formal or stuffy (especially after the pastor started reading from the wrong chapter in the Bible and everyone broke up laughing). What joy, when the ceremony ended with probably the longest kiss on record.

The reception began as the large orange ball of a sun hovered above Mission Bay, reflecting its orange rays up to a low-lying cloud above the water before it dipped below the horizon. A fabulous dinner was served and then the dancing began. What fun! All too soon, it was over and the bride and groom embraced as they sailed away in Julie’s parent’s sailboat.

My heart was a crazy mix of emotions, violently clashing against each other: joy, heartache, buoyance, exhaustion… My mind reeled with 23 years’ worth of mental snapshots wildly flashing through my memory: cradling my precious 9-pound newborn, terrifying days in the hospital as his life hung in the balance, cleaning up messes as my curious toddler went from closet to closet, emptying each of its contents, his adorable, mischievous smile as he broke our toilet, his beautiful brown eyes, squinting in laughter … and now he was gone from my care.

But it was good – very good. It’s the way it should be.

When your son walks out of your house, into the arms of his new wife, you can sit back in your easy chair, put your feet up and congratulate yourself on a job well done. Luke grew up. He survived. And so did I, although there were many times when I feared neither of us would.

It has been said that parenting ain’t for sissies. It’s SO TRUE! It takes every ounce of love, courage, wisdom, patience, understanding, strength and humor that you can muster out of the depths of your being. It’s fun – it’s crazy – it’s frustrating – it’s heartbreaking – it’s scary – it’s maddening – it’s … well, a crazy mixture of random emotions that hurls your heart into a whirlwind of bewilderment. And you are always second-guessing yourself, never sure if you’re doing the right thing, being afraid you are going to warp your child’s tender psyche for the rest of his life.

And sometimes, as hard as you try, you simply … can’t … do it … You come to the end of yourself. And that’s what it’s all about. I don’t know how people do parenting without Jesus. I could never count the times when I came to the end of myself, unable to do it one more day. But I threw myself into the loving arms of Jesus, pleading for him to take over. And you know what? He did.

As Luke and Shannon entered adulthood, I told them “Dad and I have done the best we knew how. For better or for worse, it’s now up to you how you deal with it. You can either take our mistakes as a victim or as your opportunity to grow. It’s your choice. Just never doubt that whatever we did was done out of love for you.”

And that’s what parenting is all about: LOVE (and Jesus).